


Sticks and Stones May Break My Bones But...

by orphan_account



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-05
Updated: 2017-09-05
Packaged: 2018-12-24 03:56:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12004497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Every child is born with a tattoo on their forearm - the first words that their one true soulmate will say to them. Dan and Phil found each other years ago, but these days their forearms bear something different. Their last words to one another, printed in black ink.





	1. Stagnant Air

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mollieblack](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mollieblack/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Not So Platonic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11647635) by [mollieblack](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mollieblack/pseuds/mollieblack). 



> DISCLAIMER: This is an alternate plot-line of Mollieblack's 'Not So Platonic', which I recommend you read as this contains some spoilers for that narrative, and it's a highly enjoyable literary experience as well. Ideas and characters such as Phil's parents, the AU concept, are taken from Mollieblack's work, and I lay no claim to them.
> 
> I contribute this alternate plot-point in no way to suggest Mollieblack's intentions with their characters, simply as a reaction to the possibilities for a darker side to the original narrative, which of course my blackened mind conjured during my reading of 'Not So Platonic', a link to which you'll find above.

Phil liked to believe he had a wild imagination, and perhaps he did. However, sometimes it was not enough to escape the sheer boredom of a day like _this_. Dan was simply nowhere to be found, the air seemed stagnant in the living room of their flat, and everything seemed frozen as if a few minutes passed over what seemed like hours.

It was during times like these that Phil would turn over his right forearm to read the dark ink etched eternally into his pale skin. He liked the words of what people called his ‘end quote’ significantly more than what was originally there. Before he’d met his soulmate, who turned out to be Dan, he knew that the first words, which had been tattooed to his skin since birth, that this mystery soulmate would say to him, whoever they were, would be ‘oh sorry, I didn’t see you there.’

Understandably, it had always bubbled a raging fire within Phil’s mind. He hated being invisible. But he supposed after so many years through childhood and adolescence of looking at those words printed on his skin that perhaps he’d be waiting a long time to meet his soulmate. Clearly they just ‘wouldn’t see him there’. It was in moments of boredom like this one that Phil remembered staying up late as an eight year old, blemishing his skin with tears – even then no one ‘could see him there’. Upon reflection, an eight year old like Phil should have been more concerned with how many chocolates he would receive in his snack box from his loving parents when it came to lunchtime at school.

But Phil had met Dan many years ago now, and he was better for it. You see, when one hears the words of one’s tattoo read aloud by one’s true soulmate, it disappears. Most pairs of soulmates are quickly issued with another pair of quotes shortly afterwards. Receiving an end quote is a sentimental moment; it tells of the last words you will say to your significant other. Some couples are made dubious by it. They read into what the words could mean, what their fate is. Phil had always felt terrible for his old friends, Chris and PJ, who seemed to be destined for a heart shattering argument that would surely end their relationship with one another.

That was why Phil had never showed Dan his end quote, and forced Dan to reciprocate. This was reinforced by a pinky-promise for safe measure. He simply did not want to engage Dan in a self-fulfilling prophecy. When Phil’s father, James, died in hospital of a terminal disease, the two wondered whether his life could have continued indefinitely had both he and Catherine intentionally avoided the words of their end quotes. All the more reason for Phil to never let Dan see what the quote was. He didn’t want to test the rules of this bizarre affliction.

However, he rest assured that their parting was a long way off. On lonely days like this, Phil took comfort in looking down at his arm and staring at the carefully printed letters.

‘I’ll stay here until the end because I love you, Dan.’

He knew he liked that one a bit more than his first tattoo, which he’d stared at for most of his life before he met his soulmate. Before he met Dan. At least with this quote he understood that the couple would most likely remain inseparable until death came in old age. Even then, he was saddened at the fact that Dan seemed to be first to leave the Earth.


	2. A Delicate Matter

Hours had passed in Phil’s mind, but still it had barely moved to 3pm. The light in the flat’s windows was beginning to fade, yet still at an unsatisfactorily slow rate. He assumed that perhaps Dan had taken another photoshoot job at Dubois’ modelling agency. Phil had seen the inside of the studio a few times and had become acquainted with Domonique Dubois’ receptionist, Zoe. With nothing better to do, he lazily dialled the office.

“Good afternoon, thank-you for calling studio 6H. You’re speaking with Zoe, how may I help?” The woman answered sweetly, yet in a rehearsed and false way.

“Hi Zoe, it’s Phil,” the man spoke timidly into the receiver.

“Oh Phil! I’ve been waiting for you to come visit the studio all week,” she started excitedly before her voice lowered in a threatening way, “you better have a good reason for neglecting us…”

“Well actually, Dan hasn’t been in much this week,” Phil started as an excuse, “I wanted to ask if he was there at the moment though?” Phil’s question came out more as an uncertain statement than anything else.

“I’m sorry Phil, you’re right he actually hasn’t been in all week. And certainly not today,” she stated, perplexed, “Remember, he chooses when to come in so perhaps he took time off?”

“That’s probably it, well thanks for your help Zoe. I promise I’ll come by and visit after Dan’s next shoot!”

After some rushed goodbyes, Phil was back to sitting where he had sat all day. He read his end quote again as he waited for nothing to happen.

‘I’ll stay here until the end because I love you, Dan’.

 

 

Night fell after the agonisingly long day. Phil sat in a crease on the couch folded especially under his unmoving weight, where he’d been eating from a few bags of crisps all day. He’d need to clean that all up at some point. Phil had been in such a trance that he’d forgotten to turn on any lights in the room, and quite suddenly it had gotten dark enough to notice. Still no sign of Dan.

That was until Phil’s phoned buzzed. It was sad to Phil that the only thing alive in the room right now was an inanimate, inorganic object. He answered regardless.

“Hello? Hello?” the voice on the line spoke when it didn’t hear an answer from Phil, “am I speaking with Mr Philip Michael Lester?”

“Oh, uhm yeah that’s me,” Phil responded, suddenly registering the use of his name, “who is this?”

“My name’s Steven, from the Royal Infirmary,” he paused and Phil cocked his head in momentary confusion, “you’re listed as a beneficiary for one… Mr Daniel James Howell? Is that correct?” he finished when Phil gave no response.

“Yes, yes that’s right,” Phil started nervously in a croaky voice. The concern was rising in him and he needed to keep himself together as the thoughts of the end quote were rushing back through his head.

“I’m afraid we may need you to come to the Infirmary as soon as you can manage, Mr Howell is in a very delicate condition. I’m sorry that I cannot give you more information, the nurses can clear up any questions when you get here,” Steven explained, a tone refined by routine in his cold voice, “are you alright to come by now please?”

Phil dropped the phone as he rushed to the nearest bus stop.


	3. The Importance of Prudence

Phil’s eyes watered as he arrived in a minimalistic, white walled hospital room to see a tall figure which he couldn’t mistake for anyone else but Dan. His soulmate was lying on a rock hard mattress with purple bruises painted all over his skin and tattered clothes draped uselessly on his shoulders. He was tangled in a ghastly web of clear plastic tubes filled with medicine, some with blood, and others with what Phil could only assume was waste, extending from all over Dan’s body and connecting him into the room as if he were some sort of horrific science experiment. It all seemed so clinical.

A much older person rose from her chair to face Phil’s shivering form as he took the sight of his soulmate bound to this hell – his mother, Catherine. Her cheeks had the tracks of tear stains brushed onto them, and clearly she had been here for a while.

“Phil, sweetie, I’m so sorry,” she sobbed as she pulled Phil into a broad hug. Neither were sure who was comforting whom, but in times like these it didn’t matter a jot to Phil. He just didn’t know what to say, all he knew was that his heart was pounding and he could feel it now that another person was pressed against him.

“I loved him as part of our family just like I love you,” she choked out, letting some more tears escape her eyes and fall onto her son’s shoulder, “I’m so sorry, and I’ll never feel like I can apologise enough, my darling boy it will never be enough.”

“Mum… what,” Phil started in utter confusion at the hysterical mother, now bawling her eyes out into his jacket, “what happened and what are you saying? Please just… just tell me.”

Phil looked into his mother’s dark droopy eyes, and all he earned was a soft and weak glance before she averted them and shook her head nervously. Refusing to divulge something.

“Mum, what happened?” He asked again. Moments passed, yet her head kept shaking as she wept. Phil looked to the man he used to hope he’d be able to marry. Almost lifeless in this horrible place and supported in what seemed to be his last hours of life by the most inhumane medical stabilisers.

“Mum… please,”

He whispered it desperately. Oh he was desperate. He was desperate as the tears prickled his eyes, and he could only repeat the begging word weakly. Over and over again.

“Please, mum, please.”  

“Honey, it was in the car. I came to drop off some things at the flat, some things your father wanted you to have,” Phil felt his stomach flip, but this time it wasn’t happy kind like usual, “I know you both loved James very much, and you know how touched I was that Dan looked at him like a father of his own,” she continued, choking back more tears to get through her monologue.

“We decided to go for a drive, we thought some pancakes would do us good. Just like the ones I used to make for you. It felt nice to be with family again,” Phil felt the uncomfortable tension rising in the story, as if some jump scare were about to come out of nowhere in a horror movie.

“God, I missed having you two with me. I felt so alone and I wanted to be with someone on the day I finally got through your dad’s things, and that’s when the worst happened,” Catherine was forced to pause as she very nearly shouted through her distressing tears, “Phil, honey, I’m so sorry. Another car bloody got impatient when I stopped at the lights to let him out so I could park,” her voice raised to yell, “and the shit for brains FUCKING BASTARD SWIPED HIM AS HE OPENED THE DOOR,” she screamed through the hands that Phil was using to hold her head from falling to the floor as she wept. Her tortured voice bounced around the room and the hurt in the words stabbed at Phil’s chest like tiny blades of glass cutting a canvas.

"Your Dan was my God damn son too, he was my...," Catherine pulled her head to look at the ceiling as she sobbed her words out: "... he was my son too..."

His mother never swore.


	4. Generosity in Tears

It was approaching midnight, Phil had told Catherine to book a hotel for the night and come back in the morning. He wasn’t sure he could face her yet. He knew it wasn’t exactly her fault, but God did he need someone to blame. Her reckless decision to let Dan out at the lights boiled his blood. He needed the time to hold Dan’s hand in any case. To talk to him privately. People who were deeply asleep could hear those on the outside sometimes. In their dreams. Cows could only dream lying down, and if Dan were a cow right now, Phil wanted to make sure that he’d be having an awesome dream.

“Dan, bear, I don’t know if you can hear me, or if you’re even there,” Phil started slowly, flinching at the sound of his voice in the otherwise deadly silent room, aside from the beat of the heart monitor. It was easier to continue after breaking that silence, so he did. “Please know that I love you very much,” he paused. No, he couldn’t say the next bit. Not just yet.

But fulfilling end quotes surely required both people to be conscious, talking, so that they could express their final words. Which meant that Dan couldn’t die so long as he was asleep.

“I always wanted to propose to you, to give you a huge ring, probably with a black stone in it just for you, maybe even take you somewhere on holiday,” Phil had to pull himself back from letting his wild imagination tell of all the things he would never get to do, “I want those things with you, so please Dan, please come back…”

Dan was literally being bled dry as the wounds of the fatal car incident were too great for any life support to maintain.

Phil so desperately needed to hear Dan’s voice, and he wasn’t sure whether he could keep talking to someone who didn’t respond. Especially like this. The blood slowly seeping out from Dan could not be stopped, he looked a poor farm animal slaughtered and bled out then severed by a butcher. Dan's loss of blood looked a disturbing crime against nature itself, and Phil could not face it without some response.

 _Only a peek_ , he thought. _It’s one way to know what he would want to say._

Phil slowly lifted up Dan’s bloodied black sleeve around the various tubes and plugs to glimpse at the black ink imprinted onto his fair skin.

Phil closed his eyes as he said his quote, prepared to open them to read his soulmate’s.

“Dan, listen to my voice if you’re in there. I’ll stay here until the end because I love you, Dan.”

 

Phil felt his heart break as the words he read from Dan’s forearm quite literally dissolved and disappeared forever...


	5. Frugality in Words

_Don’t make this any harder for me Phil. I just can’t say that ‘I love you too’ and mean it anymore._


End file.
